Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Another Blaine creation, this 60 Sportster was built in honor of the evil wench Blaine was married to at the time. He took a stock frame and added a bolt on hardtail as well as some really cool custom pieces. You can't see it in this pic but the tail light was an old 50's style microphone, the starter end cap was a Crager center cap and the little holder on the air cleaner was the tail piece from a bass guitar he had. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'll try to remember it by the time I get around to posting the pic of the other side. I really like this pic because it was getting dark and the neon at the Sonic restaurant was glowing pretty good. That's Blaine you can see just over the front fender. R.I.P. my Brother, you are not forgotten!

This is the Walker Sisters cabin near Little Grennbrier TN in the Smokey Mtns. National Park. They were a family of sisters who never married and lived on the family farm when the park was established. They were allowed to live out their life here and were one of the last families to live in the park. One sister did marry and had children, I was lucky enough to meet one of her kids (Effie Phipps) and hear some cool stories. According to my Mother we are related to this family by marriage somehow and my Grandpa Garrett actually spent the night in the cabin when he was young. Today you can get to the cabin by going to the Little Greenbrier School and then walking a ways back along the trail to the cabin. I've been here quite a few times and have enjoyed every visit, whether it was with my Folks and Sister years ago or even a few years ago with my Wife. There is always a "cool vibe" when I visit.

This is a 68" Triumph that was found on ebay by my late friend Blaine. It was in pieces and had never really been together and on the road. Apparently someone built it and painted it in the 70's and then put it in storage. Blaine bought it, put his engine in it and finished up some other details and basically just rode the hell out of it until the stress of worrying about screwing up such a classic bike convinced him to sell it to someone who would put it on display. I have oterh pics showing the crazy paint that I'll post later on this week.

Monday, November 23, 2009

One of the many pictures you will see of this bike if you decide to follow this blog. Basically it was taken in my driveway in one of my favorite photo locations. I like the color contrasts of the plants behind the bikes. I also try to play with angles while shooting the bikes. Sometimes it's great and sometimes it sucks ;-) I liked this one so you get to see it too. Unfortunately I sold this bike a month or so ago, but the guy who bought it is giving it the attention it deserves.

This is the Bombardier's view from the nose of a WWII B-17 bomber in flight. Last year I had an opportunity to actually go on a flight in this beautiful aircraft (The Liberty Bell) I sat right behind the Pilots in the Flight Engineers position (the same position my Grandpa Starr served in during the war). Once the aircraft was in flight we were able to get up and move around the plane. You can see the other pics from this flight in the B-17 pics album of my facebook page. Planes like this one are the reason we are allowed to speak English in this country today. The B-17 was a plane that could be depended on to bring its crew home even when shot up so badly that it ended up being scrapped. as seen in this picture after a raid on Cologne, Germany. By the way, the damage in this picture is the area where I was standing in the nose to take the first picture.

Here is a picture of the aircraft I was able to fly in, the Liberty Bell

I really like this shot of my "best buddy" Merlin. This was taken a couple of years ago as I was lying on the couch recovering from having a rod put in my leg after getting hit by a truck on the "Batcycle". He hardly ever left the foot of the couch in all the weeks I was laid up except to eat and he even slept on the floor next to the couch at night (I couldn't go up stairs so I stayed on the couch for a few weeks). There is a reason we call them "man's best friend".

Sunday, November 22, 2009

This is a picture I took for a calendar my bike was featured in. I thought the red was made a nice background because of the red bats and pinstripes on the bike. I had to do some editing of the picture because the wall was a little too washed out to suit me. I played with the levels and curves to get the colors to pop out the way I wanted them to. I really love to use old buildings in my pictures and getting to use them with one of my bikes is just an added bonus.

Here is a picture of my '70 Triumph TR6C Chopper when it still had the springer forks. The bike looked great, but the forks were too short and the bike was a deathtrap to ride like this. I really liked this picture though so I used Photoshop to play around and ended up with it looking like a drawing. I'm sure there are simple plug ins to do this now, but when I did it a few years ago you had to do it the hard way ;-)

This was taken at the Southern Museum of Flight when they brought in a B-25 in pieces to clean up and display. This aircraft had crashed into a lake in S.C. back in 1942 (I think) on a training flight and was recovered just a few years ago. Chemicals in the lake used to control algae played hell on the aluminum but the aircraft was somewhat preserved by the 3-4 ft of mud that was inside of it. You can even see the still intact thermos on the floor to the left. The best thing about this find was that the plane still had the bottom gun turret. There are only 2 known to still exist int eh world and this is one of them. There were removed and junked because of the way it worked. You looked through a periscope out the bottom of the plane and no one could fire the guns with out getting airsick because of this configuration. The turret survived because of the unique way of stowing it. The turret rode up and down on a giant screw and was stowed flush with the bottom of the airplane.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

This picture give you an idea of the size of the each wall. He lays the edge of the walls, then adds the filler into it. Each stone is placed, non are dumped. He says this represents each time she placed her foot ont eh ground to take another step. You really need to try and visit some time, Tom is in his 70's so don't wait too long or you will miss a truly moving experience.

Here is another section of the wall. This is close to the end of the wall. I had to take this picture because I didn't realize my friend was entering the shot on my first attempt. I actually like the first shot better even with the arm in the bottom corner of it.

This is a section of Te Lah Ney's wall it is a memorial in NW Alabama to an Indian woman who was taken to Oklahoma in the follow up from the Trail of Tears and managed to get away and walk back home. It is a very moving site and has been constructed by her great-great-grandson. You can get more info here http://ifthelegendsfade.com/